London Fictions

Welcome to London Fictions

LATEST: Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway by Anne Fernald, article here
RECENT: B.S. Johnson, Albert Angelo by Andy Wimbush, article here
MOST POPULAR: Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia by Susie Thomas, article here

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Recently published by Five Leaves - London Fictions has contributions by twenty-six historians, writers and enthusiasts, each writing about a commanding London novel and the city it depicts. Do give it a read:

London Fictions is a site celebrating the novels which capture the essence of an absorbing city. On this site are articles about books which have a powerful feel of London, or a locality or community within the city. Each is written by an expert and enthusiast. Some of these novels are well known and widely read. Others may well be new to you. I hope this site will encourage you to read more of the fiction set in London, and to walk the streets and surroundings which these novels depict.

There's some overlap between this site and the London Fictions book, but broadly they are parallel activities - so they complement each other rather than going over the same books and themes.

We are keen for new contributions - please do offer to write, there's a contact form a little lower down this page. And to the right, you will see news of events and publications of interest - including plans for a book which will include some of the items posted on this site. Do please browse - enjoy - share - read - and write.

And here are the items already posted on this site - click on the book cover to be taken straight there:

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Zadie Smith

NW - 2012

written by Philippa Thomas

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Martin Amis

Lionel Asbo - 2012

written by Nicolas Tredell

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Naomi Alderman

Disobedience - 2006

written by Audrey Snee

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Peter Ackroyd

The Plato Papers - 1999

written by David Charnick

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Nigel Williams

The Wimbledon Poisoner - 1990

written by David Charnick

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Hanif Kureishi

The Buddha of Suburbia - 1990

written by Susie Thomas

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Kamala Markandaya

The Nowhere Man - 1972

Charles R. Larson

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Anthony Cronin

The Life of Riley - 1964

written by Tony Murray

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Waguih Ghali

Beer in the Snooker Club - 1964

written by Susie Thomas

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B.S. Johnson

Albert Angelo - 1964

written by Andy Wimbush

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Robert Poole

London, E1 - 1961

written by Rachel Lichtenstein

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Terry Taylor

Baron's Court, All Change - 1961

written by Stewart Home

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Colin Wilson

Ritual in the Dark - 1960

written by Colin Stanley

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Colin MacInnes

Absolute Beginners - 1959

written by Jerry White

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Colin MacInnes

City of Spades - 1957

written by Kate Houlden

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Gerald Kersh

Fowlers End - 1957

written by Séamas Duffy

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Alexander Baron

Rosie Hogarth - 1951

written by Andrew Whitehead

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Elizabeth Bowen

The Heat of the Day - 1948

written by Jane Miller

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Norman Collins

London Belongs To Me - 1945

written by Séamas Duffy

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John Sommerfield

Trouble in Porter Street - 1939

written by Andrew Whitehead

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Sajjad Zaheer

A Night in London - 1938

written by Madhu Singh

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Pamela Hansford Johnson

This Bed Thy Centre - 1935

written by Zoë Fairbairns

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Patrick Hamilton

The Midnight Bell - 1929

written by Simon Goulding

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Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway - 1925

written by Anne Fernald

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Dorothy Richardson

The Tunnel - 1919

written by Bobby Seal

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A. Neil Lyons

Arthur's - 1908

written by Peter Jones

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Arthur Morrison

To London Town - 1899

written by Eliza Cubitt

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Arthur Morrison

A Child of the Jago - 1896

written by Sarah Wise

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H.W. Nevinson

Neighbours of Ours - 1895

written by Angela V. John

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George Gissing

The Nether World - 1889

written by Andrew Whitehead

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Walter Besant

All Sorts and Conditions of Men - 1882

written by Eliza Cubitt

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Charles Dickens

Great Expectations - 1860-61

written by David Parker

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Daniel Defoe

A Journal of the Plague Year - 1722

written by Dermot Kavanagh

In case you are wondering, the cover of London Fictions is based on a 1976 painting by Belinda Davies, 'Guardian Angels'. It's posted below:

And I've posted below some photos taken at the London Fictions launch:

'Clarissa Dalloway's Day'

What a great idea to have this walk - a novel set ninety years ago and published eighty-eight years ago. There's a great online piece on the book here - and below I am publishing the other side of the Women's History group flyer, based on Vanessa Bell's design for the novel's original dust jacket:

London Irish Fiction

Tony Murray, Director of the Irish Studies Centre at London Metropolitan University, has written the first concerted account of London irish fiction. It's published by Liverpool University Press, and has a wonderful Bernard Canavan painting as its cover.

The publishers say of London Irish Fictions: Narrative, Diaspora and Identity: 'This is the first book about the literature of the Irish in London. By examining over 30 novels, short stories and autobiographies set in London since the Second World War, London Irish Fictions investigates the complex psychological landscapes of belonging and cultural allegiance found in these unique and intensely personal perspectives on the Irish experience of migration. As well as bringing new research to bear on the work of established Irish writers such as Edna O’Brien, John McGahern and Emma Donoghue, this study reveals a fascinating and hitherto unexplored literature, diverse in form and content.'

Albert Angelo back in print

To mark the eightieth anniversary of B.S. Johnson's birth, and the fortieth of his death, Micador have republished his commanding work, the wonderful Albert Angelo - and do read the entry elsewhere on this site.

Ken Worpole on the original London Fields

John Milne, London Fields, Hamish Hamilton, 1983

When in 1988 Martin Amis and his publisher announced that his forthcoming novel was to be called London Fields, there were a few gasps of surprise and dismay, especially amongst aficionados of the London novel genre: a perfectly good novel of the same name was already in print. More than that, it was an intriguing novel of small-time criminals and families on the edge of things - and their mirrored counterparts in a corrupt police force – which had very distinctive things to say in its own right. Neverthless, Amis, his agent and his publisher apparently felt no problem in over-riding other people’s literary achievements for the sake of a good title.

John Milne’s London Fields was published in 1983, and is an accurate period piece portraying a young, likeable but disorganised chancer called Alfred Hicks – Elfie Icks as he terms himself – who unwittingly gets caught up in a territorial drugs war between rival white and black gangs, with the police throwing petrol on to the fire just to keep things moving along. Milne obviously knew a lot about police life and culture in the city, going on to write scripts for the TV series, The
Bill. The slang, the patois, and the detail of pub life, club life and life down the station – and eventually inside prison – ring true.

What makes the novel more than just another programmatic lowlife fiction is the character of Elfie who, like Bill Naughton’s Alfie, or Alan Sillitoe’s angrily nonconformst ‘long distance runner’, dominates the narrative pace and style of the book. The novel is book-ended by opening and closing chapters which describe a prison psychiatrist trying to understand how Elfie got caught up in such a tangled mess which only ended with Elfie beating a villain to death in an underground station. The bizarre conversations between the trick cyclist – yes
it’s that period of slang – and Elfie are funny, and strangely profound. Milne’s book is actually a good examination of how slightly aimless, disorganised young men, who dream of better things, can drift by degrees from the street market to the hardcore underworld of gangland drug dealing, with the terrible results which eventually occur.

Ken Worpole

Literary London Journal

The spring 2013 edition of the Literary London Journal has just been posted online - here it is ... including reviews of recent novels by Martin Amis and John Lanchester, and an article on the London of Virginia's Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.

Literary London Society

If you haven't joined the Literary London Society - do. Here's the link for details.

Header image

The image at the head of this page is a panorama of London from Hampstead Heath. Photograph taken by Michael Reeve, 17 July 2004. It is used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

We are always on the look out for new contributions -
so please do offer!